During the time between Germany’s reunification and the end of 1996, extraction of lignite declined by about 50 percent (from 167.7 million tons in 1991 to 80.3 million tons in 1996) on account of the restructuring of the economy and the diversification of energy supply in the new states. Lignite nonetheless remains one of the main sources of energy, although to a lesser extent than in the past. The cuts in production and the massive government programs for rehabilitating the environment and modernizing power stations have reduced pollution considerably in recent years.

The main hard coal deposits are in the Ruhr region (North Rhine-Westphalia) and in the Saarland. Proven recoverable reserves there total about 24 billion tons.

In 1950 hard coal accounted for 73 percent of the old Federal Republic’s primary energy consumption. By 1996 its share had fallen to 13.9 percent. But oil, too, lost ground to other sources of energy, largely on account of the oil price explosions in the 1970s. Oil’s contribution to energy supply fell from 55 percent in 1973 (compared to only five percent in 1950) to just under 40 percent at the end of the 1 980s. In 1 996 the figure was 39.5 percent. The oil crises of the 1970s in particular showed how important uninterrupted energy supplies are to Germany.